Illustration

An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation.

Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for children's books. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information by providing a visual representation of something described in the text.

Trolls and Princess Tuvstarr in the book Bland tomtar och troll

the White Rabbit, by John Tenniel

  

Edward Lear illustration to a limerick,

Princess Nobody , illustrated by Doyle.

 Illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated concepts or objects that are difficult to describe textually, which is the reason illustrations are often found in children's books.
Some traditional illustration techniques include watercolor, pen and ink, airbrush art, oil painting, pastels, wood engraving, and linoleum cuts.   

Jessie Willcox Smith's 1923 illustration of the characters in Alice in Wonderland

Digital Illustration
Computer illustration or digital illustration is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a tablet or a mouse.

Concept art
Concept art is a form of illustration used to convey an idea for use in (but not limited to) films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design. This term can also be applied to retail design, set design, fashion design, architectural design and industrial design.

 



 

Technical Illustration
Technical illustration is the use of illustration to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be component technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustration in general aim "to generate expressive images that effectively convey certain information via the visual channel to the human observer". Nowadays, many illustration programs are used to create technical illustrations due the need for detailed imaging and repeated updating. Besides the commonplace 2-D Adobe Illustrator, there are many 3-D computer graphics software that are often utilized to create illustration for textbooks, especially scientific ones. Technical illustrations generally describe and explain the subjects to a nontechnical audience. Therefore the visual image should be accurate in terms of dimensions and proportions, and should provide "an overall impression of what an object is or does, to enhance the viewer's interest and understanding"